For more than 1200 years there has been a tradition of "flower viewing" in Japan, often referred to as "Sakura" which means "Cherry Blossoms". Every year a great deal of attention is given to the prediction and tracking of the Cherry blossom "front" as the blossoming period moves steadily from south to north. As I recall there was quite a row this last year as several of the Meteorological Agencies were a few days off in their predictions. It seems that a lot of people plan their visits to Japan in order to be able to witness and celebrate the Sakura.

Whats your favorite tree?

Most of the he pictures in this blog are images that are listed in Flickr under the "Creative Commons" license for non-commercial use. All of the images are linked to their original Flickr pages where more information and comments can be found. There are also links to the photographers profile page on Flickr.